The industry of player care within sport has long been a neglected one, often overlooked and understated in its value. In the past and in more testosterone fuelled environments, where you were expected to look after you and only you, understanding the impact it can have in relation to sporting performance was still in its infancy. However, times are changing and the role of a player liaison officer is growing in stature.
Hugo Scheckter, Southampton’s former player liaison officer and one of the first to be given an official title at a football club, knows better than anyone the benefits of proper player care. Scheckter now wants to continue changing perceptions.
“If a request is important to a player, it should be important to me,” says Scheckter speaking to Prost International. “Just because it might sound silly to me, it may be the difference of them feeling settled and comfortable. I’ve been asked for advice and requested to help when some have met their mother in laws for the first time and they need this very specific thing.
“There have been requests where I have thought ‘that’s a bit odd’ but it’s not about judgement it’s about support. But if it is really genuinely stupid, I will probably tell them that!”
Having now spent over a decade in the industry, Scheckter has had to contend with burglaries, family health issues and player’s setting off their fire alarms. For a new signing joining from a different country, understanding the finer details of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, or paying council tax, can sometimes be tricky. All of which means Scheckter is on call 24 hours a day and never off duty.
Photo: Southampton FC
The actual job of a player care department or a player liaison officer can be difficult to work out for your typical football supporter. Many, even, might not be aware that they exist. Yet, away from the glitz and the glamour of high end professional football and the rollercoaster of a Premier League weekend, they are arguably one of the key, most integral, figures at a club.
The role of a player liaison officer is still somewhat nebulous. It is an all-encompassing job but one that doesn’t actually have a distinct set of tasks to carry out each day. Perhaps that goes a fair way in explaining why the role had been around for decades, but only in an unofficial capacity. At Aston Villa in 2002, Lorna McLellan was the first individual to be given the official title of a player liaison, rather than be merely viewed as a staff member that just helped out.
19 years on, football clubs are taking the role more seriously than ever before. Player care departments are being created, welfare and wellbeing officers are being established and students are now going to university wanting to be player liaisons.
So, it leads us all to the most glaring question; what exactly is a player liaison officer?
“It’s quite wide-ranging and there’s a lot of different clubs who have different structures and responsibilities,” says Scheckter. “I pretty much see it as covering anything that isn’t football or medical around the first team. It could be player relocation, getting them to do their commercial, marketing, foundation appearances, helping out with first team travel, team communications.
“It’s also about helping players to make sure they are in the right place at the right time. Ensuring their wellbeing is looked after, whether that is family support or other things that are similarly intertwined. Some clubs now have travel departments who do all the away games and then player care who don’t travel. Some have player liaisons, who organise it all and travel with the team. That is similar to what I followed.”
Scheckter first joined Southampton as an intern, while at university. His role involved working with the club’s under-18 squad, before finishing his degree in America. “I then went to work for a club in the States. I was speaking to Les Reed about my career and he said ‘well, we potentially have this job as a player liaison. Would you like to give it a go?’”
In 2014 and at the age of 23, Scheckter returned to Southampton and happened to coincide with the club’s whirlwind rise up the Premier League table. Given the relatively young age of Scheckter and the highly-talented, highly-experienced players he would have to work with, forging a mutual respect with those in the dressing room may have been expected to cause tension in years gone by.
“When I first started at Saints I was younger than most of the players so then that was interesting as well, because I was working with the players potentially ten years older than me. Gaining their respect and making sure they treated me equally, which they did.”
To make things potentially more daunting for Scheckter, the manager would be one of the most illustrious players of his generation.
Photo: Southampton FC/Training Ground Guru
“Ronald (Koeman) was my first manager and that was quite a shock because I came from the American second division to the Premier league and managed by one of the greatest players. I was pretty green and his presence was just fantastic. You could be a non-football person and walk into a room and just know he was in charge because of his aura and the way he carried himself around. I learned a hell of a lot from him and remain extremely grateful.
“He wanted that support (from me) and he, along with Les (Reed) identified that need of something to help with the support of players. Ronald was a really big driving force and I became part of his inner circle which I was really grateful for. Being this young kid out of uni and a year later I was part of that inner circle.
“At the time I didn’t realise take into account how impressive it was for Southampton to be fifth, sixth, seventh every year. I was just like ‘yeah, of course we will be there.’ Now you’re looking and seeing those days feel quite a long time away.”
The role of a player liaison officer has long been given vague descriptions from those looking in. One of the main reasons as to why, Scheckter concurs, is the ever increasing scope of the job. Every day is different and that alone comes with its challenges.
“There wasn’t really a normal day,” laughs Scheckter. “I’d arrive a couple of hours before the players, just to get my day organised. I would then be at breakfast with the team, checking in and saying hello to everyone every morning and then seeing what’s going on with them all individually.
“I got on with the work when they used to go out to train. That was a quiet time as the players couldn’t be on their phones because they were out training. It was the one time in a day where they can’t actually contact you. Then at lunch, I would give some an update, perhaps take someone to their player appearance if that’s what they are scheduled for.
“At Southampton I used to travel with the team so I would do every home and away game. This usually meant I would be sorting out tickets for games for player’s friends and families and making sure we had everything arranged for the weekend.”
The omnipresent nature of the role meant Scheckter would have to deal with a large number of people and players, all with different personalities and varying character traits.
“Some players want to have a laugh and a joke. Some want the talk to be very direct. Naturally, you can recognise who wants you to be forceful with them. Others, you can let them lead it. I always say you need to have an approach for every single player and knowing what’s important to them.
“It might be a chat about their family or the new baby, if that’s what they want to talk about. Even conversations about their dog or their car. For some, it could be that they even want to talk about politics. So trying to find that niche for every person helps when deciding on your mannerisms for each player.”
Photo: Southampton FC
Scheckter worked closely with not just the players or the coaching staff but families, too. After leaving Southampton to join West Ham in 2018, Scheckter created a 30 page welcome pack for prospective signings. This would include individual photos of each member of staff, a list of approved suppliers such as food caterers for children’s birthday parties. Notes from local school’s headteachers, language lessons and places to park were also comprised.
“I always tried to identify who that number one person is in each player’s life,” says Scheckter. “It’s often their partners but it could be their mum, dad, brother or friend. I tried to make sure whoever it was, they were part of the journey as well.
“At Saints we had a partners’ box, where mostly wives and girlfriends could go and watch the game. We tried to make a little community with them. We had a WhatsApp group for them, to be able to talk to each other, we had family events we put on.
“Events could be something to do with the player’s kids or just the partners themselves. I remember we used to do a drinks night or have some little fun competitions. We would try and mix it up because some players were single. Some players had girlfriends with no kids and others had a couple of them. So it was all about trying to make sure we organised different events for everyone to enjoy.
“At West Ham before COVID, we got pretty close to organising a trip to the zoo, which we were going to put on and take everyone out there on a day off. We were going to let the kids play and get to know each other.”
When asked what his biggest learning curve had been, particularly in a job that had so few senior figures above him of whom he could heed advice, Scheckter says the value of ensuring the happiness of a player’s family is essential.
“There were times where I probably got that wrong, especially at the beginning of my career where it was more about taking care of the players. But if that number one person is not happy, not settled or not enjoying it, it’s unlikely it is going to work for that player long term at Southampton.”
Last year, Scheckter spoke about one particular learning curve. “I had a player at Southampton that I think I got wrong — I’ve said that to the player. He was a foreign player, his English wasn’t very good but he was quite young, happy-go-lucky, wasn’t really playing but every time I spoke to him he was, ‘Yeah, good, good, good’. He was hanging out at the training ground, spending time there, and I never thought about his wife.
“His wife didn’t drive, she was stuck in the apartment, she didn’t understand English, we didn’t have Spanish TV sorted for her, she had no friends, no one to speak to in a small south-coast city.
“She got so unhappy that she’s refused to stay there. That’s why the player was staying late at the training ground because he’d get home and she would be so wound up by just being locked in all day effectively that she’d explode at him. The club lost out probably on a decent transfer fee because the player was so insistent on leaving.”
Spending most hours of the day with a group of footballers and learning about the more intimate details of their own life can lend itself to builiding close relationships. For Scheckter, one relationship that supporters may be aware of is his with Maya Yoshida. The former Southampton defender was often pictured with Scheckter on the club’s various social media platforms.
“The one with Maya is a funny one,” smiles Scheckter over Zoom. “Maya is such a warm and lovely person. I was stood by the tunnel once before one game and he asked me for a photo as if he was a fan. He then scored and we won the game so it then became a lucky tradition. Before every game Maya had to have a photo with me so there was just a plethora of Maya and Hugo photos.
“We never really spoke about the tradition but it was just like before every game he said ‘we need to get a photo Hugo’ and that’s why there are so many photos of us together because it happened before every game for a year and a half!”
As performances on the pitch continued to go from strength to strength, change was always afoot at Staplewood. The team’s best players would begin to be circled and approached by the league’s bigger clubs. It led to Scheckter having to deal with players who were looking for a way out.
“I think when you are on the inside of it you see it differently to when you are looking from the outside. It was a bit of a blow to lose your best players every year but we seem to replace them so it worked itself out.
“At the end of the day, you are all there to win and most of them are friendly with each other, but most players are not friends. You do get some who have really good relationships but it’s not a blood brothers for life kind of thing.
“Football is such a small world that I know a lot of people from a lot of different clubs and you see them in the changing rooms or in the tunnel before a game with all the ‘hello, mate how you doing? How’s the family? See you next year’ and that is essentially the stent of their relationship.
“Footballers often know and respect each other but it’s not about ‘you’re a piece of shit for moving’, they are all there to win games and I don’t think I’ve seen any player sack it off completely or cause arguments. A lot of what happened at Southampton swirls around outside and often inside there is a lot of focus. No one inside the club begrudged a player going from a team like Southampton to a Champions League now winning team (Liverpool) because a lot of them would quite like the same move as well.”
After leaving West Ham in December last year, Scheckter decided to set-up a business called the Player Care group, a consulting and education platform for clubs wanting to improve their player welfare or for those aiming to get into the industry.
“A lot of other player liaisons were asking me for advice and it got to the point where I just felt there was a business in this somewhere. I left in December just before West Ham-Saints, which is a fixture I always loved.
“Coincidentally, West Ham won every single one. I spoke to one of the Saints players and he said ‘the Scheckter derby is one we always dislike’ because Saints would always be coming into the game in great form and West Ham were bumbling along and always West Ham would win!
“It was always friendly banter but it was nice to get one over Saints although I obviously left with a lot of good memories and absolutely love the club. But it was nice to see some of the Southampton players like “oh my god, why am I seeing you everywhere?’”
Scheckter says more needs to be done to evolve the industry but hopes the Player Care group can accelerate the rate of progression. “Football has medical consultants, scouting consultants and every area of the game covered so why not player care now?”
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Southampton Football Club have announced their 2021 retained list.
Ryan Bertrand heads an eleven-man list of players who will be released upon the expiration of their contract, on June 30.
The full list is as follows:
- Ryan Bertrand
- Jake Hesketh
- Josh Sims
- David Agbontohoma
- Lucas Defise
- Pascal Kpohomouh
- Kingsley Latham
- Kameron Ledwidge
- James Morris
- Thomas O’Connor
- Tommy Scott
While the likes of Sims and Hesketh’s departures were disappointing but nonetheless expected, given the protracted nature of their progress at the club, a further two players who had been expected to leave, haven’t.
Yet.
In April, Southampton boss Ralph Hasenhuttl told Prost International “it would be a miracle” if Sam McQueen ever played football again, having missed over two years struggling to recover from an infected ACL knee injury and a multitude of further setbacks.
It had been believed McQueen’s contract was due to expire on June 30, along with the other eleven players on the club’s retained/released list. However, given the injury ravaged fortune McQueen has suffered, his situation is understood to be being treated differently by Southampton.
Despite the immediacy of his contract expiration, McQueen will continue to be able to use the facilities on offer at Staplewood, in a bid to aid his recovery. Very little has changed in the relationship between the player and the club since April, with Southampton understandably keen to preach caution considering McQueen’s ongoing ordeal.
An announcement in regards to his playing career on the south coast is expected soon, but as stated, the club will ensure any decision is made and treated carefully.
Regardless of McQueen’s future, Southampton will continue to press ahead with plans for adding at least one left-back this summer but are not likely to sign one before the European Championships get underway. As reported by multiple outlets, Junior Firpo is one of the names on a finalised shortlist. Southampton were close to agreeing a deal for the Barcelona left-back in January, before the presidential elections at the Catalan club scuppered the move.
Goalkeeper Harry Lewis’ future was also anticipated to be up in the air, with official accounts also showing his deal to expire at the end of the June. Prost International, however, understands Lewis signed an extension to his current contract in January, but was not formally announced by the club at the time.
Lewis is keen to agree a season-long loan out of the club this summer, with the 23-year-old determined to play first team football on a regular basis. Lewis has featured just three times since joining Southampton in 2015 and aside from a season on loan to Dundee United, has been largely consigned to life as a third-choice goalkeeper.
The decision to extend Lewis’ contract comes after a frustrating year for the former Shrewsbury player. Both Lewis and Southampton had previously been planning to let him go out on loan for the duration of the 2020/21 campaign, but COVID-19 bubbles and the precarious nature of self-isolation forced Southampton to reconsider. In the end, they decided Lewis would stay and provide ample back-up to Fraser Forster and Alex McCarthy, in case if either or both were ruled out due to injury or infection from the virus.
Though the silent nature of Harry Lewis’ contract extension is unusual, particularly in this era of clubs embracing the fanfare of social-media and all the furore most announcements seem to yield, Southampton do have a track record for contracts not being made public.
In June 2020, The Athletic reported Jack Stephens signed a new four-year-deal to stay at St Mary’s. At the time of writing, the deal is still yet to be confirmed by the club, despite various sources corroborating that the agreement is signed.
It is believed Southampton’s lack of fanfare around certain deals is to do with the amount of power they cede, especially in the transfer market. Announcing a player’s contract, who the club may be open to letting go on loan or permanently, may give prospective buyers false impressions, subsequently putting them off from making a bid or even enquiring.
Therefore, this preferred method ensures players are still available for transfer – providing the right offer comes along – and simultaneously certifies a player’s value does not diminish due to the length of their contract.
Follow us on Twitter @ProstInt
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It’s come to be all too familiar.
No end of school feel. No departure from the norm. Southampton’s final game of the season ended how they had started. About as inevitable and expected as the sun rising each morning and the taxman collecting his money, they signed off the campaign with another three-something loss to West Ham, again, away from home.
If Southampton were a 100 metre runner, they’d probably make the final. Not good enough to win it, but then again, not so sub-par they would look out of place. But in a Premier League season, especially this one, it is deeply unforgiving of those who tend to play in fits and spurts. It is a marathon, a test of endurance and dealing with all the problems that transpire throughout a race.
Southampton’s intransigence in adapting to Premier League rigours all came to a head on Sunday afternoon. And in all honesty, much like it has done since the turn of the year.
It never used to be like this. As those players trudged down the tunnel and West Ham embarked on their lap of appreciation for the 10,000 supporters in attendance, the stadium announcer confirmed Europa League football beckons. They will be playing in Europe next season. Four years ago, a familiar message was spoken over the tannoys and into the stands. But back then, it was at St Mary’s, and said by the late, unflappable, stadium announcer, Justin Gladdis.
Southampton were ahead of the curve and entrenched amongst the enviable group of teams who seemed well placed every season to do battle for a European spot. They wouldn’t always get there, but the journey to do so was always far greater than the destination itself. Southampton looked up. Now, rather, they look for Premier League survival.
And while survival is not necessarily a bad thing – many teams would love to be given that remit across the football league – it does represent a slow, meandering drift.
In 2021, Saints reached the next stage of their various afflictions in the four years since. Sunday’s 3-0 defeat to West Ham, the somewhat annual occurrence, reached a new nadir. It meant the team conceded 68 goals across 38 Premier League games – a club record. And out of those 38 games, they lost exactly half of those.
Not only did the match follow the script, it picked up on all the specifics, too. A 3-0 loss away to West Ham, a game in which Southampton played well for the grand total of about ten minutes, before falling behind and feeling sorry for themselves.
Afterwards, Ralph Hasenhuttl called the second half of the season a “reality check” and repeated his desire to see significant changes in key positions.
“Congrats to West Ham, they deserved it today. We saw the difference between the two teams. Box to box, we were same level. In the boxes, they were at a different level today.
“There’s no point speaking about individuals. We are 15th in the table and that’s where we should be. It is not enough to perform in the first half of the season. When you conceded the second most amount of goals in the Premier League, you see what we need to change.”
The European Super League has shone a light on the current model of high end football, where the rich became wealthy scavengers and intent of vacuuming up any money that slides down the sides of the pyramid. That sense of greed and blatant disregard for balanced competition has forced the rest of the teams in the same division but ironically, not in the same league as the ‘big six’, to be just content to make up one of the 20 for the following season. It’s about survival rather than living.
Subsequently, for those without the luxury of throwing fortunes into a fire and hoping it produces fireworks, they are having to inspect their own teams a little more closely, hoping the players and the resources they have outperform their means. For all the philosophies and footballing principles, what happens in both boxes is the defining bellwether for most sides.
For Southampton, their work at either end of the pitch has been met with frank humiliation in recent times. Against West Ham, in the first 15 minutes, they played some lovely football in the areas between both boxes – pretty patterns, clever movement, lovely tidy work with the ball. All the garnishments for the game. But being pretty or lovely doesn’t win football matches. Being made to look like the younger sibling who had his toys taken off them on Christmas morning doesn’t win football matches.
Sunday’s curtain closer was reflected in the central defender matchups between the two sides. Jannik Vestergaard and Jan Bednarek, two defenders who have been widely viewed to have a higher ceiling in their careers and more steps on the ladder to climb, did their best aircraft Marshall impressions, waving West Ham’s attackers through every time they went near the goal.
The distances between the pair became staggering. Despite playing nearly 30 games together, both wore the look of two strangers, turning up for Sunday league football minutes before kick-off and calling each other ‘mate’ for the duration of the game, usually due to the fact that you don’t know the other’s name.
If one went to apply pressure on the ball, often getting too close to Michail Antonio (again), the other suddenly felt compelled to drop 15 yards deeper. The whole backline became one great diagonal mess. Speaking post-match, Hasenhuttl called the lead-up to Pablo Fornals’ first goal “a farce.”
Meanwhile, in West Ham’s corner stood Craig Dawson and Angelo Ogbonna, two players in their thirties and likely to have reached their limit of potential. Yet, they ensued to deliver a defensive masterclass on their counterparts. A lesson in the art of throwback defending, what it actually means to keep a clean sheet.
While Hasenhuttl has regularly spoken on the need to somehow tighten up a malfunctioning defence, his initial attempts are not working. In recent games, the Saints boss has instructed Nathan Redmond – nominally one of the side’s number tens – to drop so deep out of possession he falls in line with the back four. Perhaps it was to cover the deficiencies at left-back, and having added protection of a winger would give Mohammed Salisu less to deal with. But it hasn’t worked. If anything, Redmond’s form has become even more erratic and the team’s troubles are being even more exposed down that side. Both of West Ham’s first half goals came via the left.
Fornals’ second goal, three minutes after the first one, was just about indicative of where this side sits, mentally. Before the game, this writer opined that Southampton will need to deal with the undoubted momentum shifts in the game, particularly with the hosts having supporters back and a chance to finish in Europe. They would have to endure moments of suffering and draw the sting out of the game. If Prost International can recognise that pre-game, why couldn’t Southampton?
The goal itself was schoolboy. Two international defenders, in Bednarek and Vestergaard, for some reason thinking that marking grass would be better than marking anyone. Fornals couldn’t believe his luck. While he went off knee-sliding to the corner flag, it was hands on hips time for Saints. The same limp walk back to the halfway line, the same token clap of encouragement from James Ward-Prowse, the same heads going down.
Now let’s get onto what happened at the front. It was just about summed up as early as the 46th minute. Ibrahima Diallo, still keen but physically outmatched by West Ham, ran onto a loose ball on the edge of the box. Supporters breathed in sharply, clearly anxious. There was no need to be anxious. Diallo’s shot was blocked by his team-mate, Danny Ings, who then himself got into a tangle trying to get out of the way.
Redmond, who was now playing higher in the second half, then ventured into the box. He received the ball just left of centre, before performing a typical routine of his by slowing the attack down and letting opposing defenders recover into shape. However, this time, it seemed to have worked. Redmond cut in and onto his stronger foot, set to fire a clear shot towards Lukasz Fabianski’s goal.
Instead of aiming his effort towards the far post, where the netting was literally yearning for the ball to go there, he decided to hammer it into the near post and into the side netting.
Southampton used to be a team that thrived in chaos and that was translated in their work in both boxes. They used to be destructive, sometimes brilliant and mostly anarchic in their approach. Nowadays, it’s just become sad. David Moyes bringing on Issa Diop, another central defender, with three minutes to go, just felt the perfect tinge of irony to end the season on. Moyes could have brought on David Gold in central defence for the final 20 minutes.
Ralph Hasenhuttl must now take his fair share of the blame, too. His decision to take off Kyle Walker-Peters, the team’s best attacker on the day, midway through the second half embodied the state of confusion. He moved Ward-Prowse to right-back and to play ‘on the highest line.’ Instead, it turned out that Southampton would enter the final 25 minutes with a system that held no width, with two full backs that didn’t overlap.
The game, much like the last four years, looked to be meandering out. Well that’s until West Ham rubbed one more lump of salt into the gaping wounds. Declan Rice would run through this time, with Bednarek looking like he had something heavy on his back trying to catch up and Vestergaard deciding to run away (quite literally) from the onrushing Rice. 3-0. Again.
Southampton’s defending is the one overarching chink in Hasenhuttl’s make-up. They are all too quickly keen to revert to last ditch tackles and back-to-the-wall defending. A lack of cool heads and tangible leaders means that the numbers for the meat and potatoes aspects of defending, such as blocks (14th in the league) and clearances (12th), don’t reflect that type of attitude. Southampton have also made the most last man tackles in the division with six – a sure sign of the frenzy that encompasses the back four.
As stated, only relegated West Brom (76) have shipped in more than this team. Though statistics do not need to remind you that this defence is significantly underperforming, it is somewhat beneficial to see the whole picture. Southampton’s xGA (expected goals against) has verged on the damning. Their total of 58.55 shows they have conceded 9.45 more goals than the quality of chances they gave up. In other words, they let in almost 10 more goals than they were expected to. It is a damaging slight on the last line of defence but also the goalkeepers.
The heavy reliance on Danny Ings as the side’s only natural goalscorer has been underlined due to his regular absences. Che Adams’ form has been, to quote Hasenhuttl, like ‘ketchup.’ Fruitful spells have been offset with periods of famine in front of goal. Ward-Prowse and Stuart Armstrong notwithstanding, Saints’ production line hasn’t eased the burden on the forwards.
Though supporters often rue missed chances and the lack of finality in some of Southampton’s end product, xG suggests their forwards slightly overperformed this season. The quality of chances created meant the forward line should have scored 45 goals this season, but their xG total of -1.72 resulted in the team scoring 47 goals.
However, since the turn of the year, that xG total decreased considerably. Partly to having dramatically outperformed their xG earlier on in the season, but also due to a clear decline in performances. Goalscoring metrics bottomed out during the winter and so too did the genuine quality found in this team.
Southampton are good in some parts of the season and some parts of the game. But if the last four years has told us anything, they never last the course of a 90 minute 38 game Premier League season. Inevitably, they then find a way to implode.
Much like before.
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Before we begin, I must confess I do not have anything against the singer, nor do I particularly dislike his music. The problem, however, was that he started to become a picture of uneasy familiarity to me. His face a constant reminder of what we had, and what we lost.
For the past year, I have walked into the St Mary’s toilets, through those big red doors and admittedly sometimes coming in from the wrong way. But there has been no bloke who arrived early for his pre-match pint leaning against the walls telling me “there’s a clear no entry sign, mate.”
Bloody Jake Bugg. The toilets are full of half a dozen posters of the singer, plastered over the white washed walls and all with the same facial expression of Bugg seemingly meeting your gaze wherever you go. The poster tells you he has a ‘new’ single out called Kiss like the Sun. That chart-topper, (you must have heard it right?) was released in summer 2019, nearly two years ago.
The sulky, blue-steel pose of Bugg is obviously an attempt to follow the ‘grumpy looks cool’ trend or appear one of those deep, profound singer songwriters who often tells you they “sing from the heart.” Over the winter months last year, I began to find the intent stare becoming a little more disconcerting, especially when my 6ft 1in frame means I meet his stare at eye level. When you’re trying to spend a penny, it can be rather off putting.
Depending on what toilet you head in to, Bugg’s poster is occasionally dispersed by frequent advertisements to the Cheltenham festival, detailing how you could be “one of the lucky guests” to claim four free tickets to the race days. The small issue being those tickets were meant for the 10th to 13th of March… 2020.
March 7, 4.45pm, 2020.
Sat in the media area, situated high in the nub of the Itchen, I swivelled my head to the left. A friend of mine was sat in the Chapel, but remained entrenched in his chair. Over the course of 90 minutes, his posture slowly decomposed, up until he had almost sunken ground level. Some French winger with bleached blonde locks had scored the winner against his club. “Fucking shit”, were the two sole words I received from his text message.
Meanwhile, Dave, the man who sits in front of him, is a schoolteacher. My friend says he’s cordial enough before the first whistle. Dave is the only person my friend knows by name within their mini-enclosure of St Mary’s. Blocks 31 and 32, just left of centre on the byline. My friend says his grandad hates the seats, “the only view that’s worse than having a seat in the turnstiles,” he says.
Next to my friend’s right are two fathers and their sons. Lovely people, apparently. The two gentlemen and their boys – who both unashamedly wear the full replica club kit each week come rain or shine – always ask my friend for the score prediction. Secretly, I think they take pleasure out of my friend’s negativity. Whenever he almost indefinitely picks Southampton to lose, regardless of the opposition, it feels as if the fathers have garnered a little sense of schadenfreude.
Below them is a man and his wife, both with detectable Millbrook accents and seem decent enough. The husband has this great booming voice that can be heard permeating its way across the ground. “For god’s sake, wake up and get the ball bloody forward!” he shouts.
My friend says they don’t hang around much after full-time. They are always the first to get up and make a dash for it. My friend once told me he ‘ain’t surprised’ they leave early so often. Who could blame them after witnessing some of the tripe this side often serves up?
Despite never having so much of a smatter of small talk with the pair, they habitually offer my friend hot chocolate, poured from their silvery, pretty compact flask, drawn out of this tatty red and white bag that’s almost certainly seen better days. It is a little embarrassing he doesn’t know their names, bearing in mind he spends two hours with them at least 20 times a year, either shouting, moaning or if James Ward-Prowse produces a trademark free-kick, with the curling elegance of a pointed ballerina, hugging them.
Its been 437 days since that 1-0 defeat to Newcastle. It has been well over a year since my friend last walked arm in arm with his nan up those Block 31 steps. It didn’t matter if the team had lost the last game or if that ‘bloody French bloke’ scored against them again, they always had the undercurrent of excitement and as inane as it sounds, pleasure. They were their seats. Together, as a family.
Its been 437 days since my friend lifted his wilted head to tell Dave he’ll see him ‘next week.’ None of us knew that 11 days later, we would be confined to the four walls of our house, with Boris Johnson’s hokey-coney lockdowns and Jonathan Van Tam’s football analogies providing the constant ambience to our daily routines.
The opposing goalkeeper couldn’t hear you call him a fat bastard, nor can the referee realise that he is, indeed, a wanker. Yes, I still attended games – I’m extremely lucky to be working as a journalist – but it was not the same. That poster of bloody Jake Bugg told me as much.
My friend longed for the day when he traipsed home from a game and the smell of chip fat and spilt beers wafted through the winterly nostrils. Or when the bus driver – he still cannot drive – takes a look at his nan’s striped shirt and says, “I won’t ask about the score,” fully well knowing Southampton have been on the end of another pummelling.
Taking that same route to the stadium, past the murals of Markhus Liebherr or walking up that rather steep train station hill. Finding that space in your usual car parking spot, or walking past the scarf-man selling those half and half fabric pieces of “memorabilia” – we all took it for granted.
On Tuesday evening, everything we missed came back. Supporters got their Southampton back. In many ways, my friend got his nan back.
For the last year, due to the very little else I have had going on in my life, I tended to arrive at St Mary’s very early. This usually resulted in parking in the industrial estate while I waited for entry. I had the pick of the estate, parking here there and everywhere. Nothing was out of bounds. The estate, usually so full of life and workers, had become sad with silence.
Not anymore.
The burger vans were back open for business on Tuesday night
Last night there was such a shortfall of options, I was forced to put my mediocre driving skills to the test and parallel park. The estate was crammed with cars and fans pacing up and down, trying to shake off those feelings of butterflies and excited anticipation.
200 yards north was St Mary’s and its tannoys cranked up to full volume. All the classics came back out, Queen, Status Quo, Elvis – you name it. Inside the stadium, the noise was interrupted by regular bouts of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” of course, sped up and slowed down in rhythm for added effect.
Around the perimeter of the ground, stewards were on mass, pacing up and down, actually doing the job they are paid to do. This is no slight on stewards, they have been extremely warming during fan-less games, but there is something sad about a steward’s remit being solely to keep members of the media out of the red zone. As the minutes ticked closer to kick-off, the fretting of the stewards grew. There was mini-crises, worrying about which gate was which and whether it was indeed the yellow or orange gate the members of hospitality were entering.
The ladies in red returned to welcoming the guests in the hospitality suite, clad in red and polite and charming. They were all smiles and a reflection of tranquility despite the pandemonium that was encompassing them. To the left of the ladies were the stewards and the turnstiles, brimming with activity and the hustle and bustle of a proper matchday.
The Saints Brass band were back and were seen carrying their large instruments across the front of the ladies and to the right of the stewards. You know in those films when everything seems to be going on at once and yet everything appears to be from different worlds? Try being in the Itchen on Tuesday night.
Heading into the turnstiles, Jake Bugg wasn’t the only person to look at me. There were staff at the hot food counters, unwrapping, rewrapping, unfurling and handling all sorts of things. In small red ink was the price of sausage rolls, obviously astronomical in pricing in relation to wider society but reasonable when visiting football stadia. Just below on the list was vegan sausage rolls, of which the hot food counter now served (very woke, I know). Before I could even comprehend the fact they were able to do an actual sausage without any meat, I took a look at the price of a hot dog. £4.70. Unless it is coming cloaked in gold and has tickets to my own mansion in it, that pricing was ludicrous.
But there they were. Fans routinely paying for the phoney sausage in a bun or getting their hands on their preference of sausage roll. They knew the prices were extortionate, but they didn’t mind that night. It was the first sign of returning to normality, returning home.
I’m big enough and ugly enough to admit that when the singing got louder as kick-off approached, a small little puddle began to convene in one (just one) of my eyes. Good job for masks, eh.
The game itself followed the narrative fans have seen before and all too regularly, either from their television sets or in person. The 8000 supporters watched on as Southampton started brightly, with everything seeming in good working order.
Leeds, a team that thrives on chaos and who scoff at the thought of playing anything else but whirlwind freewheeling stuff, so much so that they make a Brazilian carnival look monotonous, appeared shaken from the first whistle. Their pressing was failing them and were faltering under Southampton’s intensive traps.
A teenager in front of me, no older than 17, breathed in every single moment of coming home. The absence must have been unbearable as from the very first whistle he was shouting, clapping and jumping off his seat with every little glimmer of hope.
The teenager was donned in this year’s away shirt, with a club hoodie underneath. His watch was red and white, perfectly matching a scarf which was unusually distorted in size. He and his dad, who himself wore the classic yellow 76′ shirt, got so excited that at one point they threw a little first pump after Southampton won a throw just over the halfway line.
This is the essence of unrestained unbridled joy. The teenager might not be particular loud or extroverted away from St Mary’s, but this was his place of escapism, a place he’s been longing to come back home to.
As the second half wore on and Leeds reverted back to their usual juggernaut ways, Southampton couldn’t keep up. The naivety was being felt in the stands and being played out on the pitch. It is an area Ralph Hasenhuttl must address next season.
But let’s be honest. Did the scoreline really matter? Supporters got their Southampton back. The absence of you had been too much. They laughed, shouted, moaned and swore. In other words, they felt everything they were expected to feel. Like a jilted lover, our relationship with football endured over a period of prolonged pain and wretched fortune. But it wasn’t the same.
It is now.
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It was an hour into Southampton’s game with Leicester and Theo Walcott slid to his haunches next to the corner flag.
The substitute watched on from his lowest vantage point, transfixed on the action.
Walcott remained unmoved but inside, an overarching sense of tension was beginning to transpire. His team had been awarded a penalty, having spent much of the game with their backs pinned to the wall. As for Walcott, he had experienced much of the evening leaning forward on the bench, providing continual encouragement and instructions for team-mates.
When he did venture out from the stands and onto the sidelines, Walcott’s legs would warm-up, but his head refused to deviate away from the happenings on the pitch. His eyes were intent and focused on the play, shrilling every time the ball threatened either goal.
Referee Robert Jones moved the Leicester players out of the box and went through the rigmarole of warning about encroachment. Eventually, Jones put his whistle to his mouth and James Ward-Prowse slotted in the penalty. Only then did Walcott get back to his feet.
In a footballing sphere powered by reams of data and glutinous in its use of analytics, Southampton’s decision to re-sign Theo Walcott’s could be seen as a deal made on a whim.
After all, analytic experts and lovers of facts and stats would swiftly reach the conclusion that Walcott’s south coast homecoming has been lukewarm at best. They work in tangibilities and hard-cold data. Their metrics do not measure hypothesises or unfounded opinions. When they evaluate Walcott’s impact this season, nothing is likely to jump out at them.
In 21 Premier League appearances this term, Walcott has scored three and assisted three, with just one further big chance created.
Tuesday’s news that Walcott would be settling on the south coast for the next two seasons generated an assortment of responses, from the good to the bad, to the vaguely indifferent. For some, perhaps footballing romanticists who revel in nostalgia, the thought of Walcott finally being able to play in front of a sold-out St Mary’s crowd tinkle the wistful senses.
Others, quite understandably, will point to the lack of contribution in the assist and goal departments, characterising Walcott as one of the many the players who failed to arrest the team’s winter and spring decline.
But since arriving at Southampton, those inside the club have pleasantly surprised by the affect Theo Walcott has had on the team, not only in performance level but in mentality. Martin Semmens, the club’s chief executive recently described Walcott’s influence as “coming in and leading the team forward.”
Arriving on Deadline Day last October, none of the associated parties expected Walcott to acclimatise to Hasenhuttl’s bespoke methods as quickly. Hasenhuttl was immediately taken aback by Walcott’s ability and hunger to succeed at Southampton, displaying a childish-like excitement upon returning to Staplewood. Naturally, this led to Walcott soon becoming an integral component within the starting XI. The original plan was for Walcott to augment the side’s forward positions and provide much-needed experience, mostly from work on the training ground and substitute appearances.
The deal to bring Walcott back was presented to Semmens and Hasenhuttl in the final days of the window. While the tangibles of the signing went against the club’s recruitment remit, both believed it was a deal that promised plenty of upside. Walcott would be able to bolster the two number 10 positions – widely regarded as the most physically challenging positions – and become an on-field presence the likes of Nathan Tella and Moussa Djenepio could benefit greatly from. During the first week, it was noted by a number of players and staff in how impressive Walcott was in setting standards and conducting himself around the club.
It is understood Walcott would go out of his way to speak to younger players, not only about their game but life in general and the trappings being a professional footballer can bring. It is believed Walcott’s words of wisdom are still being heeded now.
It was a testament to Walcott’s malleability that a player of his experience and age could be so receptive to new ideas. Those inside the club did not expect Walcott to win a slot in Hasenhuttl’s starting XI so soon. Walcott’s signing coincided with the first international break of the season and despite Staplewood briefly out of action due to Stuart Armstrong’s positive COVID test, the gap in fixture schedule facilitated in giving the 32-year-old a period of time in which to become attuned in Hasenhuttl’s fervent, if taxing, methods. Over the break, the pair worked closely on the pitch and partook in a number meetings together, enabling Walcott to learn the nuances of the 4-2-2-2 system.
Hasenhuttl was enthused by Walcott’s propensity to take large amounts of information on board and subsequently put into action on the training ground. Following a string of successive starts, the Saints boss swiftly decided that Walcott’s ability to assimilate various technical and tactical points, allowed him to trust Walcott to play anywhere across the front four positions.
This premonition was put into action a few weeks later, when Danny Ings got injured in the team’s 4-3 victory at Villa Park. Rather than utilise third-in-line Shane Long or Michael Obafemi, Hasenhuttl plumped for Walcott to dovetail with Che Adams up top. The following game brought instant gratification amongst the coaching staff. Seven minutes into the following match with Newcastle, where Southampton enjoyed a fleeting stop at the Premier League apex, Walcott would set up Adams with a low, driven cross.
The goal itself had underpinned a theme since Walcott’s arrival. Whatever was asked of him, in whatever scenario, the former academy graduate was more than willing to endure the hard yards for the good of the team. And during those periods of apparent adaptation, Walcott would continue to surprise by transforming his own game to what was required.
Up until the new year, when Southampton’s form patch had hit its deepest shade of purple, Theo Walcott was the only new arrival to play more than half the available minutes, and continued a trend of Southampton continuing to only give a large chunk of minutes to only one or two new signings in a season. In fact, the last time Southampton had more than two new signings feature in more than 50 percent of minutes available was 2014-15 (Ryan Bertrand and Graziano Pelle).
Two months after reaching the summit, all preceding optimism had dissipated and been exchanged for ominous glances to the medical team. The team had been in the midst of an injury decimation when Walcott suffered a hamstring injury in January. Walcott would be consigned to the sidelines until nearly April.
However, during the various stages of recovery, Walcott would still turn up to Staplewood on his days off, spending extra time in the gym and continuing to prove a sounding board for team-mates. Detailed in The Athletic, despite injury, Walcott joined James Ward-Prowse and Oriol Romeu in a meeting with Hasenhuttl. The season had approached the month of March and the trio wanted to seek a solution in halting the team’s freefall. Walcott, it is believed, is one of the players within the club’s leadership group.
Now recovered from injury, Walcott’s appetite to put in the extra work hasn’t waned. He is still one of the first to arrive for training and one of the last to leave.
During Southampton’s FA Cup semi-final defeat to Leicester, Walcott could be seen leaning intently forward on his seat for the duration he was on the bench. He was a constant source of shouts and rallying, speaking to others on the sidelines in his own personal attempts to provoke an improvement in performance.
With Ryan Bertrand leaving, Walcott’s experience is set to become even more illuminating. Walcott is the only player in the squad to win major domestic silverware. Walcott has been known to talk about his career at length to team-mates, and the processes involved in achieving winners’ medals. In a recent fans forum, Kyle Walker-Peters alluded to speaking to Walcott about his experiences in semi-finals and finals during the team’s coach trip to Wembley.
It is understood many of the younger players see Walcott much like an older brother. The high esteem Walcott is held in was best demonstrated in Southampton’s 3-1 victory over Fulham this month. Immediately after Nathan Tella scored his first ever goal in senior football, he headed straight for Walcott, who had his arms aloft celebrating the 21-year-old’s strike. The pair embraced with Walcott bearing the look of a proud sibling. Shortly afterwards, the pair would combine on the pitch, with Tella’s perfectly weighted pass being laid straight into the path of Walcott.
Matt Crocker spoke glowingly of Walcott’s impact at the club. “Knowing how he understood the club, what he would bring to the dressing room in his professional standings, the impact it would have off the pitch, as well as his impact on the pitch, including buying into our outstanding medical stuff we’ve got going on here, it all made sense.”
Walcott perhaps hasn’t hit the heights of what supporters hoped for on the basis of performances and overall productivity when on the pitch. But the success of Walcott’s homecoming won’t necessarily be dependent on goals or assists. The club hopes the legacy he will leave will be seen in the likes of Tella, Djenepo and Walker-Peters. Theo Walcott stays a Saint.
Follow us on Twitter @ProstInt
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Despite the 16 day turnaround from being entangled in a relegation dogfight to plotting a promotion push, Bournemouth’s objective was clear.
It had to be a restoration project, completed and achieved by automatic promotion.
After the prolonged pain of a distorted Premier League season, where the club, players and supporters were plunged into the uncertainty of not knowing, they wanted the next campaign to be cast iron in predictability.
They had good reason, too. Unlike the stereotypical relegated club facing a stereotypical Championship season, crashing out of the top flight did not bring the suspected hammer to proceedings. Relegation had not shattered the squad or bludgeoned its way to ripping the foundations.
Those foundations, largely the composition of the squad, still contained an array of riches and talent, ranging from players who had previous in cutting their teeth at that level and others who were eminently suitable for international level. Heading into their first game of the campaign, 48 days removed from Premier League condemnation, Bournemouth still had the likes of Jefferson Lerma, Lewis Cook, Philip Billing, David Brooks, Arnaut Danjuma and Josh King.
With such a short changeover between seasons, owner Maxim Denim opted against extravagant changes. Eddie Howe, their greatest ever figure, had left. So, perhaps in an attempt to cling onto Howe, but not Howe, they appointed the next best thing. Decisions were kept in-house and were expected to precipitate a smooth transition in management. Jason Tindall, who like his predecessor and long time colleague, was believed to also bleed cherry red. Tindall would now ditch the tracksuits for more formal attire.
Bournemouth’s squad was bloated but increasingly packed with depth – surely perfect for a COVID-condensed, injury fragmented season.
But here we were on Monday night. A lorry load of managerial applicants and indeed a manager later, not to mention £80 million in player sales, Bournemouth faced three successive do or die games. Fans were back, clad in masks but unable to hide their palpable excitement.
They were 270 minutes away from where they wanted to be all along. Since this amount of fans were last here, the club’s situation has changed considerably. Over the past 18 months, the Bournemouth ideology has swerved off course, straying away from their the development-based approach. All of it had been exchanged for short term results and short term success. On Monday evening, supporters came home and straight into the cauldron of a play-off semi final. The situation now is clear – it is Premier League or bust.
Free-flowing Bournemouth, famed for their fabled expansivity, became a much more pragmatic entity under a coach no one, not even the chief executive, planned for (or probably wanted).
Despite the widely castigated appointment of Jonathan Woodgate as interim head coach, Bournemouth won 11, drew two and lost three of his first 16 league games. Invariably, the target of automatic promotion was dashed immediately, but Woodgate did secure a top-six spot with three games to spare.
Football with fans is different. Those who have experienced both sides of the coin will concur. For Woodgate and his players, the return of supporters came at the most lucrative time. With Bournemouth’s tendency to start fast, to only then fall into a deep state of malaise and sporadic bursts for the next 80 minutes, against Brentford, supporters ensured the foot kept straight down on the pedal.
It was a game stoked with mini flames waiting to burst into full fire. There was a sense of desperation in both side’s play, an over exuberant urgency to go from A to B and then to stop B going back to A. Each venture into the opposition third was met with either deep breaths or deep roars. The bombastic nature of the weather conditions only added to the drama.
Promotion is not just a desire for Bournemouth, it’s a necessity. With finances precarious and the prospect of a second successive season in the Championship, tension reached boiling point on Monday evening.
Despite securing £80 million pounds back from the sales of the likes of Nathan Ake, Callum Wilson and Aaron Ramsdale, the cash windfall did little to abate the sense of uncertainty when peering into the club’s financial accounts. At the start of the summer window, Bournemouth’s board made it clear to Jason Tindall that they could only operate through the use of the loan market.
“Every manager up and down the country would anticipate a little bit of that (money) to start to build their own team,” said Tindall in April, two months after being sacked. The former Cherries boss remains adamant he shouldn’t have been let go, but the accrued £80 million barely touched the sides when it came to covering the costs of Bournemouth’s unrestrained spending spree during their Premier League stay.
The money received from the Manchester City for Ake was to protect the sustainability of the club. Since promotion to the Premier League in 2015, in various efforts to punch above their weight, money was profligately used.
It had finally caught up with them. Player sales was the only way to put a dent into the mounting, potentially crippling loss of revenue. The pandemic only exasperated the issue. COVID-19 is understood to have cost Bournemouth in the region £30 million in lost revenue. Additionally, further damages incurred this season, when the club lost up to £6.5 million of future income after their shirt sponsor M88 was investigated by the UK Gambling Commission.
In truth, alarm bells started ringing long ago. Last season, Bournemouth topped the Premier League table for wage to turnover ratio. Essentially, this represents how much of their generated revenue is being spent on player wages. Their most recent accounts, published on June 30 2020, showed 113 percent of their generated revenue was going to players. Naturally, that figure punctuates an unsuitable business model. In 2019, the wage to player turnover ratio was at 85 percent; still a menacingly high, accountant-trembling figure.
To put the significance of this percentage into dangerous perspective, only last week did Inter Milan CEO Giuseppe Marotta state no business, in any sector, “can carry on with a wage bill turnover ratio that is 60-70 percent.” Bournemouth’s wage bill turnover ratio had been 33 percent more.
Bournemouth’s lack of advancement when it came to facilities and possessing commercially viable entities, such as a fully-fledged top division stadium, has always been a burden, particularly when trying to elevate their total income. During their final two seasons in the Premier League, Bournemouth had accrued the least amount of money of any side. In 2019, they raised £131.1 million. A year later, in a COVID-ravaged set of accounts, that total fell to £95.4 million.
This meant that in one financial year, between June 30 2019 and June 30 2020, they had lost £35.7 million pounds out of their annual income. When it comes to salary correlation, only three million less was spent on player wages (from £110.9 million in 2019 to £107.9 million in 2020). So while there is a decrease in the overall wage sum, it was not enough to supplement the loss of nearly £36 million in income.
Relying on the generous pockets of owner Maxim Denim in continuing to hand out money has been and still is, essential. But when the club appears to be on the brink of haemorrhaging it all, an aloof owner persisting with dipping into his pockets to meet the club’s shortfall will eventually prove overwhelming. It is believed that since Denim began to put money into Bournemouth in 2011, he has invested £160 million.
It’s perhaps no wonder Denim’s statement at the end of last season – his first one since gaining promotion – intimated a rush to return to the top flight of football. In spite of Eddie Howe’s departure, a farewell that left one player admitting “it felt like a death in the family”, Denim wrote an open letter to supporters, refusing to admit this was the end of Bournemouth’s Premier League tale.
“I don’t want the past five years to merely be memories that fade over time,” Denim said. “I want to create new memories that match and better the ones that have gone before.”
The impact of the pandemic has also contributed to the paused construction of plans to build a new training ground at Canford Magna, worth £35 million. Building work was delayed due to the pandemic but since construction work is now able to go ahead in the UK, Prost International understands there are no immediate plans to restart the project.
According to the club’s latest set of accounts, there are 621 staff working for Bournemouth, a somewhat bloated number for any Championship or indeed some Premier League, outfits. Failure to go up this season will ultimately lead to cuts being made and alterations made to next year’s budget. Streamlining playing staff and more significantly, off field staff would be the most likely and least time consuming way of nullifying considerable losses. Parachute payments notwithstanding, the prospect of another season in the Championship remains precarious.
If Bournemouth can make use of their 1-0 lead from the first leg and then go on to win at Wembley, promotion would be worth a minimum £135 million in additional revenue. Football is about success and failures and how both are so closely intertwined but yet so vast in emotions. For Bournemouth, success is simply a must this season.
“We hope to see you in a few weeks at Wembley,” said Mike Botter, the club’s stadium announcer. The 6000 fans began to filter out, each one knowing the importance of Monday night.
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]]>For a team that once had their football likened to a game of ping-pong, Southampton don’t tend to return serve very quickly nowadays.
Last season, as Ralph Hasenhuttl began to consolidate the foundations of his favoured 4-2-2-2, the system’s essence largely pivoted in getting the ball from A to B. The narrow structure lent itself to funnelling attacks through central areas, encouraging players to pass and run vertically.
And, when possible, utilising quick turnovers in possession to exploit vacant spaces. In October, this writer wrote a piece on Stuart Armstrong, detailing how and why the Scot flourished as the team’s space invader; tasked with seizing and sprinting into large areas of open grass. He was the figurehead of adding impetus to attacks.
Therefore, in the ensuing seven months, you would assume that heavy emphasis would equate to an increase in counter-attacking threat.
Disclaimer: Prost International has a confession to make. Their early season premonitions didn’t go quite as suspected.
Southampton’s ball dominance has been one of the many surprises of this campaign, where the days of vacuuming every single pass into the opposition half has been displaced by a more cerebral approach to build up play. A desire to pass through the thirds and coax teams onto them has meant Hasenhuttl’s men are more likely to sustain attacks for longer.
Possession gains notwithstanding, all of this does mean that counter-attacks, a typical one lasting 14.7 seconds on average, are becoming quite the rarity.
This season, Southampton are one of four Premier League sides yet to score from a counter-attack. But unlike the darling of analytics Brighton and their perennial relationship with xG, theories cannot be based around a team not making the most of their fast break opportunities. In their 36 games, Saints have only attempted nine counter-attacks.
Since January 19, when they beat Shrewsbury 2-0 in the FA Cup, Southampton have completed just one successful counter-attack since, coming against Brighton in March. A successful counter-attack is quantified by a deep transition that either results in a shot on target or a goal.
Against Fulham on Saturday, despite two of their three goals coming through free-flowing, line-breaking patterns of play, neither were classed as counter-attacks. More pertinently, the match followed a similar narrative of scoring goals without attempting one single fast break.
Yes, I know, it is indeed a baffling contradiction in their play. Particularly when you look at the aesthetics of Hasenhuttl football and how, habitually and unfailingly, words such as ‘pressing’ and ‘intensity’ form a prominent part of commentators rhetoric when they watch Southampton matches.
Various data analytics measure a counter-attack by a passage of play that starts from winning the ball in your own half before travelling vertically and quickly deep into opposition territory. StatsPerform.com say a counter-attack “occurs once a team regains possession and moves the ball into an attacking area via passes, dribbles or a combination of both.”
Southampton still being stuck on zero isn’t necessarily a bad thing, nor a particular bone of contention. It does, however, act as jarring misconception, especially when you consider their principles of play. To put their counter-attacking output into context, this writer has compared Southampton’s numbers with Leeds, a team perhaps most similar in football stylings.
While Leeds’ man marking system is more prolonged and steadfast, both teams are flagrantly encouraged to mark men, rather than space. In the same amount of matches this campaign, Tuesday’s opponents Leeds have scored six goals from counter-attacks. From this metric alone, we can assume that Southampton’s brand of football doesn’t exactly prove the antithesis to counter-attacking. If anything, it should encourage it.
Though reasons for this paradoxical data are somewhat perplexing, there are caveats. Due to Southampton’s insistence in winning the ball extremely high, a large number of their ball turnovers occur in the opposition half, thereby not quantifying as a counter-attack.
When teams play through Southampton’s press and resist the second, often third waves of high pressure, Hasenhuttl’s men tend to only be able to win the ball in deep positions. This notion is currently being felt more keenly and sharply, with Oriol Romeu – the side’s key provoker of turnovers – missing from central midfield. Regaining possession so deep into your own half means it would then take an considerable effort to then launch a counter-attack with any purpose.
Further explanations lead to Southampton’s rather lopsided slant of attack. According to Whoscored.com, Saints fashion 41 percent of their offensive patterns down their left-hand side. To put these numbers into perspective, Manchester United, a side well-versed and well-known to use the same flank as a conduit for their attacks, have only utilised that side one percent more than Southampton (42 percent).
It is worth bearing in mind Ole Gunnar Solskjær probably has more reason to use the left than Hasenhuttl, too. Paul Pogba tends to drift into those areas and supplement the acute understanding Marcus Rashford and Luke Shaw seem to have with one another.
Subsequently, in various counter-attacking scenarios, in where there is a necessity for quickness of thought and instinctive variation, Saints’ propensity to heavily rely on the left might provide logic in to why so many fast breaks fail to get off the ground. Attacking the same channel results in predictable breakaways and being increasingly easy to read.
The lack of width on the right-hand side, due to Armstrong’s inclination to glide diagonally and into the left channel, means when a counter-attack could transpire, all four front positions in the 4-2-2-2 are ahead of the ball and gravitating towards the left. In turn, this makes it much easier for defences to foil Saints’ attempts than if Hasenhuttl had an archetypal right-sided winger, blessed with out-and-out pace.
Photo: WhoScored.com
That leads us onto the next hypothesis. While Southampton have a myriad of technically adept players in the front four positions – all capable of working in tight areas and all possessing a change of speed – none of them have innate, unrefined straight line pace, capable of surging past defenders over a 20-to-30 metre distance. Think Gareth Bale’s infamous Copa del Rey goal in 2014.
Southampton have proven hamstrung by counter-attacks going the other way, too. Only four teams have conceded more goals through this method than Southampton (4). In mitigation, this is largely due to Hasenhuttl’s preference in wanting to sustain an immensely high line at intermittent points of the season.
The high line aims to condense the vertical distance between his centre backs and strikers, giving his midfielders less space to cover in central areas and more bodies around the ball to hunt in packs. The flip side to that belief, however, is a discernibly high line can sometimes be too high; opposing teams are galvanised to make fewer but more progressive passes, all the while having copious amounts of space to run into from through balls.
Check Heung-min Son’s day out at St Mary’s last September as a case in point. In just three passes from regaining possession, Harry Kane punishes a poorly structured diagonal Saints back-line, leading to Son’s goal.
Southampton’s tendency to chase matches a little too zealously can also cause a detrimental effect. In the match against Leicester in January, 90 minutes that would foreshadow a downturn in fortunes in later months, Saints pushed too high when searching for an equaliser.
The distance between Jack Stephens on the ball and the midfield became too extensive and caused a disconnect. As a result, Stephens’ hopeful pass forward is cut out by Youri Tielemans. Though not all in picture, seven Saints players are caught ahead of the ball.
Note how Leicester and their two wingers in Ayoze Perez and Harvey Barnes (who stay wide, in contrast to Saints) are in positions to counter. Tielemans eventually times his pass to the onrushing Barnes who finishes past McCarthy.
For a team that places heavy emphasis on vertical milage, with and without the ball, it remains quite the head-scratcher that Southampton haven’t scored a goal from a counter-attack this season. Whether it is part of the many quirks in their play or a more ominous problem that will surface overtime, it is a facet that is yet to be refined this season.
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As the curtain draws shut on another season, Southampton and Eastleigh are pushing ahead with prospective plans to renovate their pitches.
Southampton are set to invest £1 million in revamping some of the facilities at their training base, including all five of their full-size grass pitches.
Pitch 2 at Staplewood will be transformed into an identical pitch to the one at St Mary’s. The hope is it will enable players to feel more attuned with the distances and sprinting patterns they will have to cover in a game.
Two uniform pitches will also suit Ralph Hasenhuttl’s modus operandi in training, where a substantial amount of time is spent on fine-tuning pressing synchronisations and building the team’s play out from the back. The club believe the change will make it easier for players to replicate what they do in training, in matches.
Southampton are also pressing forwards in building a new gym in the coming months. Speaking recently in a fans forum, Director Of Football Operations Matt Crocker admitted the need to construct a high performance gym for the team.
“Our gym is a small gym. It is a rehab gym. We need to develop the infrastructure you can physically see within the environment, ensuring we are still up there competing at the highest level in the Premier League because our game is a very physical game.
“We need the best facilities to ensure there are no excuses for the players and the staff to get on a really physical level which will help us on the pitch.”
Prost International can reveal the turf from the soon-to-be torn up Staplewood training pitches are being completely relaid at the Silverlake Stadium, Eastleigh’s home ground.
The pitches, which have anywhere between 90-120 tonnes of sand underneath the grass surface, will be transported to Eastleigh. The National League club have obtained a grant to carry out the maintenance work.
Renovations are set to take place in the next 7-14 days. The whole process is expected to take an additional fortnight to complete.
Sources say the entire procedure will cost in the region of £250,000, with Eastleigh covering a considerable five-figure sum to the overall remunerations. Supplementary activity is also afoot at the Silverlake, with a new drainage system being installed.
The wide-scale operation is being shouldered by an outside contractor, not involving groundstaff from either Eastleigh or Southampton.
It is understood the two clubs share a close relationship with one another and are steadfast in helping to develop football from grassroots level across Hampshire. Talks of a quarter of a million pound agreement were first mooted in early March.
Once the current Staplewood turf is transported to Eastleigh, work will begin on transforming Southampton’s five full-sized pitches, including aforementioned redevelopment of pitch 2.
Staplewood also boasts two full-size 3G surfaces and four smaller pitches. The latter is also expected to be renovated during the off-season.
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Central defence is perhaps the only position where Ralph Hasenhuttl is afforded a winter coat.
And while the mere mention of the coldest season may emit some sort of irony, given Southampton’s various ordeals and injury decimations through that period of the season, Hasenhuttl does have an additional layer of warmth when it comes to that area on the pitch.
In comparison to other positions, some of which are so paper thin it can resemble trying to balance a bowling ball on a poppadom, the centre-back axis is well-stocked with fit and prospective options.
On Tuesday evening, Southampton climbed three positions in the table with a 3-1 victory against Crystal Palace. It was the second time in three home games Saints had come from behind to win, with an augmented second half display of intensity showing further indications that this Saints vintage is beginning to rebuild possession-based layers back into their game.
At half-time, Jan Bednarek was replaced by Mohammed Salisu, a player who may have been considered unlucky not to start the match. Despite Hasenhuttl afterwards stating the substitution was enforced rather than tactical – citing Bednarek being on a yellow card and suffering “problems with his leg” – the shift in dynamic could now present a possible window of opportunity for Salisu.
Jan Bednarek has long been Hasenhuttl’s go-to man. The centre-back who embodies his manager’s risk to extract reward methods. Bednarek offers elements of throwback defending, content and concentrated on putting out fires, rather than starting any new ones. Over the past two years and as recently as last week, Hasenhuttl frequently describes Bednarek as his “firefighter,” delivering praise in the same effusive manner only a few select members of the group consistently get.
At just 25-years-old, a relatively young age when viewing him through the prism of a central defender, Bednarek has already made 99 Premier League appearances for the club, with over 75 percent of them coming under Hasenhuttl.
The pair’s relationship is understood to be a close one. Both enjoy working together, with Hasenhuttl’s philosophy on the pitch and in general life lending itself in developing and harnessing Bednarek’s natural strengths. The Pole’s open-minded attitude has given Hasenhuttl full autonomy of his defensive game, moulding the centre-back into a quintessential front foot defender, while also ironing out any wrinkles in his work with the ball.
Previously, Hasenhuttl has viewed Bednarek as a perfectionist, particularly when it comes to personal introspection of his own game. Bednarek has been known to be extremely, sometimes unfairly, tough on himself after games. Hasenhuttl admires the extensive lengths of professionalism the capped international is prepared to reach in wanting to improve all facets of his game. The alliance the pair have formed has been fruitful for all parties since its inception.
However, Bednarek’s half-time substitution against Crystal Palace presented the clearest sign yet that is firefighting flame is starting to burn out. Tuesday’s match was Bednarek’s 40th game for the club this campaign, and his 79 over the previous two. Naturally, it shouldn’t come as a surprise for the defender, who has been on an upward trajectory for the best part of three years, to eventually suffer a dip.
There is a prevalent feeling that Bednarek has not quite fully recovered from the hellacious beating the team took at Old Trafford in February. The rescinding of the red card notwithstanding, the everlasting wisdom of Mike Dean did not help matters, either.
His performance against Crystal Palace was torrid for the most part and produced a 45-minute gateway into his current form. Bednarek was booked just before the break for a trip on perennial free-kick winner Wilfred Zaha. The foul proved indicative of the centre-back’s fortunes in recent months. Keen and willing, but slightly out of step.
Opposing sides are now beginning to play on a mounting chink in Bednarek’s game. Plainly, due to his visible, sometimes overzealous, enthusiasm in wanting to give absolutely everything to the cause, one mistake can often lead to two. Attempts to immediately atone for the error means two become three and before you know it, the defensive unit’s equilibrium is on rocky foundations.
A common theme is emerging in Bednarek’s one-against-one defending. As a direct consequence of a previous mistake, Bednarek then over-compensates his next action, which is often diving in and making too concerted an effort to win his individual duel. And as seen in recent games, a case in point being Leicester’s winner in the FA Cup semi-final where attempts at winning the ball resulted in being spun by Jamie Vardy, it can create a snowball effect in performance.
Another example is demonstrated below, in Southampton’s home defeat to Brighton in March.
A 3v3 becomes a 3v2 when Bednarek doesn’t win a 50/50 with Dan Burn. With an increasing amount of teams playing two up front against Southampton – in this case Danny Welbeck and Neal Maupay – any loss of challenge could have dangerous repercussions.
Having lost the duel, Bednarek is now behind Welbeck and the victor of the battle, Dan Burn, has surged past him. Jannik Vestergaard having to come across to cover means the back four are now outnumbered.
Ryan Bertrand, the recovery defender in this instance, stutters after appearing caught in two minds to whether close Burn or track Pascal Gross. The slight pause for hesitation results in the full-back being left in positional no-man’s-land. The initial mistake by Bednarek leads to a golden one-on-one chance for Gross.
With Jan Bednarek burning out, the future of Jack Stephens future unclear and Mohammed Salisu emerging, Southampton’s centre back situation suddenly looks a lot less clear. Stephens is often the emotion bellwether for this team and is one of the more audible presences when on the pitch. However, Stephens’ display against Palace, like Bednarek, was a reflection of where his standings currently sit amongst the centre-back pack.
It is understood Southampton are open to offloading Stephens in the summer, providing the right offer comes in. Last year, Stephens signed an extension to his contract, but as of yet, is still to be formerly announced by the club. Reports suggest the lack of confirmation by Southampton could be to avoid potential suitors in being discouraged from making a bid.
While the 27-year-old continues to show sustained periods of promise throughout a match, there is always that same-old overarching feeling a defining mistake isn’t far away. The chance presented to Christian Benteke after Stephens miscontrolled a simple pass, handing the striker a golden chance to equalise in the second half, perfectly exemplified the notion.
However, his willingness to play a malleable hand in slotting into multiple positions, does underline a value of importance to Hasenhuttl, especially if his squad remains as threadbare next season as it is now.
Jannik Vestergaard has gone from peripheral bench warmer to arguably Hasenhuttl’s first-choice centre-back, where, as seen with a swift return from a knee injury in February, has become an ‘if fit, must-play’ player. There could be a sticky point to come with the Dane, though, with his contract expiring in 2022 and no resolution yet decided upon. If left unresolved, the situation could become unclear heading into next season.
If Hasenhuttl continues to develop the team’s in-possession work with use of a quasi-back three, Mohammed Salisu may prove to be an integral cog in constructing build-up play. Salisu’s dexterity, in being the only left-footed centre-back at the club, could give Hasenhuttl an extra dimension when attempting to add further layers onto this team.
Left-footed centre-backs are gold dust in modern football recruitment.
Playing a central defender on their favoured side, with their favoured foot, enables teams to introduce more passing lanes and passing angles, largely due to the spin variations of the ball and flight paths a left-footed centre-back can obtain. Advantages can be ten-fold and nuanced, making a side’s circulation of the football less prosaic and more unpredictable.
Admittedly, metrics and statistical data do deliver a pretty damning verdict on Southampton’s defence. There can be little argument that the back four have been softened in 2021, and as seen in moments against Crystal Palace, their fragilities can be exploited. Opposing forwards are now extracting more joy out of taking a physical approach to Saints’ front foot defending. There is a growing feeling some defenders are being bullied too easily and too regularly.
Having conceded 42 goals since the turn of the year, defensive woes have been a collective issue, rather than any jarring individual performance. Each one of the quartet has their distinctive strengths, but, conversely, their own fallible shortcomings.
The conclusion of the campaign will give Hasenhuttl a prolonged period of introspection into his own methods and more significantly, closer evaluation of his players. Fortunes fluctuate and the overall picture does change quickly, but the emergence of Salisu might just add a further point to ponder on.
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With time a scant luxury nowadays, most managers are content to solely polish front of house.
Ralph Hasenhuttl wants to install new foundations.
The well-documented SFC playbook was the first piece of tangible evidence that played into the idea of Hasenhuttl thinking different to most of his contemporaries. While some modern day coaches focus purely on the here and now, the Austrian aims to establish an eventual lineage to his methods.
Hasenhuttl wants to win in the present. More pertinently, he wants the club to win in the future. It is perhaps a selfless task he’s currently performing, one where success may be accrued later down the line and attained by another manager. Hasenhuttl knows Southampton, a club that is bludgeoned in limbo due a chairman who followed some opaque instructions from the Chinese government, must stay ahead of the curve to endure the rigours of the Premier League.
Saints cannot buy success or take shortcuts to silverware. Their lack of affluent ownership means they must continue to evolve their infrastructure to keep up with the chasing pack, and god knows who else comes on the scene. This includes bespoke methods on the pitch and maximising commercialisation off it. Their modus operandi must be to enhance every single facet of the club as much as their financial might precipitates.
A significant element to future planning for Hasenhuttl, Martin Semmens and Matt Crocker is to maximise the talents of the academy. This is, potentially, the most advantageous resource a club of Southampton’s ilk can possess. Getting the academy right has the power to extract substantial profit margins, unmatched in any other sector of their business.
The remodelling of Southampton’s oldest youth age group is a move that first unfolded in Holland and Germany, where the likes of Ajax would have their reserves and first team training on side-by-side pitches. Saints’ repackaging of the under-23’s to the B-team replicated the key aspects of the continent’s approach to youth football. In what is essentially an archetypal reserve team, they now mirror first team sessions. The purpose of this alignment is to develop the same footballing principles and enable a better, more seamless transition into the Premier League squad.
In early 2020, Ralph Hasenhuttl made his feelings known to Martin Semmens in regards to the chasm between the under-23’s and the first team squad. Hasenhuttl felt the gulf between the two sides had grown so vast, it would require an irrational amount of coaching time to even think of trusting a young player in his squad.
Southampton’s coaching staff would find a number of academy graduates step-up into first team sessions and make early, promising waves. However, a common theme began to develop among those players. Performance levels in training could not be sustained for long enough to warrant match appearances.
Hasenhuttl and his coaching confidants soon analysed the cyclical pattern and swiftly acknowledged the reasons as to why. It was widely accepted the two youth sides did not possess the finer nuances of the first team’s high-octane brand of football.
A young player’s performances were tailing off due to the lack of muscle memory and tactical comprehension in performing the core principles. Key points of contention concerned player’s intuition in knowing when and how to press, the positioning required within the 4-2-2-2 system and the proficiency to pass the ball quickly and vertically.
The return of Matt Crocker coincided with the club’s evolution in academy set-up. It is understood the wheels were already in motion before Crocker was formally appointed Director of Football Operations in January 2020. However, under Crocker, the concept of the B-team would be now fully implemented.
16 months later, early fortunes of the B-team have been, to quote Crocker, “very, very mixed.” While those inside the club accept the transition was always likely to take time to fully reap the rewards, results have done little to halt suspicions that the club’s production line has become stagnant.
This season, both team’s finished bottom of their respective leagues. More troubling, though, is both ended cut adrift from the other sides in their divisions.
“When you see in the moment our B-team, how they are playing and the development of some players, it’s not going the way we wanted to see and it’s tough,” said Hasenhuttl last week.
Tough is one word to assess the B-team’s form this campaign and especially since the turn of the year, where, like the first-team, results has completely nosedived. They are winless in their previous ten games, conceding 40 goals in that time.
Leicester City were Southampton’s closest rivals at their foot of the Premier League 2 division 1 table, six points ahead. The fact they’ve remained largely entrenched in last position for most of the season, enduring the type of malaise that only gets worse the longer it goes on, is the feeling a 10,000 metre runner gets once they’ve been lapped for the first time.
A paltry total of 16 points in 23 games has taken the shine off some progressive periods, most notably the 5-2 win against Manchester City in November. But, for the most part, it has been a season plagued by inconsistency and scoreline beatings.
The next rung upon the academy ladder hasn’t faired much better, either. The under-18’s have also struggled to turn off the defensive tap, punctured and leaking to such an effect that they’ve shipped in a mammoth 71 goals in 23 games. They’ve also accrued six points fewer than the B-Team, finishing on just 10 points.
Forgive this writer if he’s spinning the thread bare, but the under-18’s do have a couple more reasons for optimism at this moment in time, winning two of their final ten matches. Not exactly dazzling form, admittedly.
A perceived shortfall of strength in depth amongst the B-team has been cited and regularly bemoaned at the club since the turn of the year, with fluctuating levels of performance underlining a gulf in ability between players. There is a growing feeling that those who’ve shown incremental developments this season, have had their progress somewhat checked due to a clear talent schism emerging in the squad. The more precocious talents often find themselves playing in a team that is visibly not on the same level.
It must be said Southampton place greater emphasis on football maturation than results. Performance levels in games are more incentivised than picking up three points. Nevertheless, no Premier League or category one team, despite it’s current period of destabilisation, should be suffering heavy defeats as regularly or as routinely as the B-team and the under-18’s do.
While the framework of the B-team will be steadfastly stuck to by the core decision makers in Crocker, Hasenhuttl and Martyn Glover, regular hammerings are unlikely to placate supporters’ concerns. Particularly when it comes to identifying the next generation.
There are caveats to both side’s treacherous seasons, though. At risk of sounding a little too like Hasenhuttl, a lack of alternatives in the first team squad has meant players who were previously sounded to be key figures of the B-team, have made up parts of the first team composition. For example, the likes of Dan Nlundulu and Will Ferry have been occupying two of the nine allocated bench slots in recent times.
Not only has the threadbare nature of squad weakened the overall strength of Hasenhuttl’s bench, but also blunted the success of B-team manager, Dave Horseman. Crocker, who spoke in detail on the academy in a fans forum last week, proffered further mitigating reasons.
“I felt they were good for the first half of the season,” said Crocker. “I look back to November when the first team beat Newcastle on a Friday to make us go top of the league. Then we (B-team) beat Man City at home 5-2 with probably what you would call our ‘B-team players.’
“There’s been a few around the environment that haven’t stepped up and grabbed the opportunity. They’ve been up (in the first team) probably because of circumstance rather than deserved opportunities.”
Since the departure of Nicola Cortese, who held a strong desire to possess a starting lineup made up of solely academy players, the youth set-up has been allowed to decay, with no real structure or clear pathway into the manager’s plans. Upstairs upheaval and continual instability at the club has meant the academy was long neglected.
Under Les Reed and Ralph Krueger’s guidance, the club altered strategy, aware of apparent shortcomings in producing homegrown talent. They opted to set aside a portion of the transfer budget in remuneration costs of the overseas scouting department, extending searches across the rest of the United Kingdom and Europe. Concerted efforts were made to prize promising youngsters away from smaller clubs on the continent.
It is understood Saints paid €1.5 million to Genevan-based outfit Servette for Alexandre Jankewitz in 2018. Two years prior, Yan Valery was bought for €400,000 circa from State Rennais.
Despite the pair’s ostensible talent upon signing, the issue with the change in approach was the negative impression it gave to talent closer to home. Some former youth players and coaches believed it sent out undertones of scepticism in regards to their own work at Staplewood. They felt it undermined the excessive amounts of toil coaches put into developing regional players from adolescence.
Martin Semmens hinted at similar concerns only last week, admitting, “the club can’t keeping buying talent. At some point you’ve got to produce it.”
As previously stated, a common retort of Hasenhuttl is to cite a ‘lack of alternatives’ in press conferences. While it’s assumed he is attempting to convey frustrations over a lack of transfer budget, it should be also viewed as a slight on the players coming through the ranks. It is believed that if Hasenhuttl felt he had ready-made alternatives arriving from the B-team, exasperations over his paper-thin squad wouldn’t be repeatedly brought up.
Inside the club, Alex Jankewitz is one of the few players deemed equipped, technically and tactically, to make the step into first team football.
However, the relationship between Jankewitz and Hasenhuttl is reported to have soured over the winter, at a time when the squad was beset by injuries. Jankewitz featured little, causing the tension between the two relevant parties to grow.
Since early January, there has been been misgivings over the Switzerland under-21 international, after Jankewitz expressed his disappointment in not being selected in the starting XI for the team’s FA Cup tie with Shrewsbury. A subsequent transfer request only complicated an increasingly fractured situation between player and club. A decision will be made on the 19-year-old’s future this summer.
Despite a severe downturn in results across all age groups at the club, Southampton’s commitment to Hasenhuttl is unlikely to waver in the coming seasons. Both parties remain earnest in progressing the club forward for the duration of the Saints boss’s contract.
This means Hasenhuttl will have carte blanche to mould the squad and therefore the B-team, how he sees fit. Crocker will provide a sounding board and offer suggestions, but the playing style and potential pathways into the first team will be down to Hasenhuttl. A responsibility not many manager’s want, or indeed get, in modern football.
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